A history of Russia
Page 27
The expansion of the Muscovite state brought with it centralization and standardization, whether sudden or gradual. First the Sudebniki of 1497 and 1550 and later the Ulozhenie of 1649 became the law of the entire land. In the course of time uncounted legal peculiarities and local practices of appanage Russia disappeared, as did such foreign imports as the so-called Magdeburg Law, German in origin, that was granted to western Russian towns by their Lithuanian and Polish rulers. This interesting law - although oligarchical in nature and often applied in a selective manner, for instance, with discrimination against the Orthodox - had effectively supported the self-government of towns in Poland and Lithuania. Autocracy and legal and administrative centralization in Muscovite Russia were to help immeasurably Peter the Great's far-reaching reforms.
The central administration of Muscovite Russia represented a rather haphazard growth of different departments and bureaus. In the seventeenth century these agencies, which came to be known as the prikazy - singular prikaz - already numbered about fifty. Many prikazy developed from the simpler offices and functions at the court of Muscovite rulers; others, for example the prikaz dealing with the pomestiia and the one concerned with Siberia, reflected new activities or acquisitions of the state. The authority of a prikaz extended over a certain type of affairs, such as foreign policy
in the case of the ambassadorial prikaz; certain categories of people, such as the slaves and the streltsy; or a certain area, such as Siberia and the former khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. Overlapping and confusion increased with time, although some scholars see in the unwieldly Muscovite arrangement the wise intention to maintain mutual supervision and checks. Bureaucracy continued to proliferate on both the central and the local levels.
Local government constituted one of the weakest parts of the Muscovite political system. The problem, of course, became enormous as the state grew to gigantic size. As a ruler of Moscow acquired new territories, he sent his representatives, the namestniki and volosteli, to administer them. The appointments, known as kormleniia, that is^eedings, were considered personal awards as well as public acts. The officials exercised virtually full powers and at the same time enriched themselves at the expense of the people, a practice which could not be effectively stopped by customary and later written restrictions on the amount of goods and services which the population had to provide for its administrators. y
However, as already mentioned, local self-government developed in the sixteenth century, with earlier measures leading up to Ivan the Terrible's legislation of 1555. In addition to the locally elected judicial and police officials - the so-called gubnye officials - who were already functioning to combat crime, the enactments of that year provided for local zemstvo institutions concerned with finance, administration, and justice. Where the population guaranteed a certain amount of dues to the treasury, locally-elected town administrators - gorodovye prikazchiki - replaced centrally appointed officials; and even where the latter remained, the population could elect assessors to check closely on their activities and, indeed, impeach them when necessary. Unfortunately, although both earlier historians and such contemporary scholars as Nosov have shown the considerable development and broad competence of the institutions of local self-government in sixteenth-century Muscovy, these institutions did not last. After the Time of Troubles self-government appeared no more, and the state relied mainly on its military governors, the voevody. The failure of local self-government, which was also to plague Peter the Great and his successors, points again to a deficiency in social stratification, independence, initiative, and education in old Russia.
The Eastward Expansion. Concluding Remarks
The expansion of the Muscovite state brought under the scepter of the tsar not only ancient Russian lands but also colonial territories to the east and southeast. The advance continued after the conquest of the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. It has been estimated that between 1610 and 1640
alone the Russian military line and colonists moved three hundred miles further into the southern steppe, under conditions of continuous struggle with the Crimean Tartars and other nomads. But the most spectacular expansion occurred fin the direction of the more open east, where, in the course of the same three decades, the Russians advanced three thousand miles from the Ob river to the Pacific, exploring and conquering, if not really settling, gigantic Siberia.
In sweep and grandeur the Russian penetration into Siberia resembles the exploration of Africa, or, to find a closer parallel, the American advance westward. To mention a few highlights, in 1639 a cossack, Ivan Moskvi-tianin, at the head of a small group of men, reached the Pacific. In 1648 Semen Dezhnev, another cossack, and his followers sailed in five boats, of which three survived, from the mouth of the Kolyma river, around the northeastern tip of Siberia, and through the strait that was later to be named in honor of Bering. Dezhnev's report, incidentally, attracted no attention at the time and was rediscovered in a Siberian archive only in 1736. Other remarkable explorations during the seventeenth century included expeditions in the Amur river basin and the penetration of the Kamchatka peninsula in 1696 and the years immediately following. In the Amur area the Russians finally reached and clashed with China. The settlement of Nerchinsk in 1689 established the boundary between the two countries along the Argun and Gorbitsa rivers and the Stanovoi mountain range. This settlement lasted until 1858.
Furs presented the main attraction in Siberia, where sable, ermine, beaver, and other valuable fur-bearing animals abounded. It should be emphasized that furs constituted an extremely important item in Muscovite finance and foreign trade. In fact, as mentioned earlier, the government acted as the principal dealer in furs. As Russian rule spread among the thinly scattered natives in Siberia, they were required to pay the iasak, a tax in furs, to their new sovereign. Also the central authorities expended great effort - needless to say, not always successful - to limit the private acquisition of furs by the administrators in Siberia, so that the state treasury would not suffer. In general, although precise calculation remains difficult, the annexation of Siberia was a highly profitable undertaking for the Muscovite state.
The Siberian prikaz in Moscow had charge of that enormous land. Its jurisdiction, however, overlapped with the jurisdiction of several other institutions, not the least of which was the Church, which established an archbishopric in Siberia in 1621. The system, in typical Muscovite manner, provided some mutual supervision and checks, which were especially important in this distant, primitive, and fantastically large territory. Still, both the voevody and lesser administrators exercised great power and often proved difficult to control from Moscow.
As Lantzeff and others have demonstrated, the policy of the Muscovite state in Siberia, as welLas that of the Church, can be considered enlightened. The natives were not to be forcibly baptized. On the other hand, if they became Orthodox, they were treated thenceforth as Russians - a condition which, among other things, excused them from paying the iasak and thus might have given the government second thoughts about the desirability of conversion. The government also tried to extend a paternalistic care to both natives and Russian settlers and made an effort to learn and, if possible, to redress their grievances. It encouraged colonists and tried from an early time to develop local agriculture, a perennially difficult problem in Siberia. But Moscow was very far away, whereas the local situation encouraged extreme exploitation and cruelty on the part of officials and other Russians. Often government edicts and instructions had little relation to the harsh reality of Siberia. Still, Siberian life was not all dark. Of most importance is the fact that, with very few gentry and endless spaces for the fugitive, Siberia escaped serfdom. As Siberian society developed, profiting from an assimilation of natives - for intermarriage was common - as well as from migration from European Russia, it came to represent a freer and more democratic social system than the one across the Urals and to exhibit certain qualities of sturdiness and independence often associated with the American frontier.
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In concluding our brief survey of Muscovite government and society, it may be appropriate to point out again the enormous effort which the creation and maintenance of the centralized Russian monarchy demanded. In fact, the main tradition of pre-revolutionary Russian historiography placed extremely heavy emphasis on the state: autocracy, gentry service, obligations and restrictions imposed on other classes, serfdom itself, as well as other major characteristics of Muscovy, all fitted into the picture of a great people mobilizing its resources to defend its existence and assert its independence. Soviet historians, however, shifted the focus of attention to class interests and the class struggle, presenting the history of Muscovite Russia above all in terms of a victory of the gentry over the peasants, not of a national rally. Both interpretations have much to recommend them.
XIX
MUSCOVITE RUSSIA: RELIGION AND CULTURE
The Emperor was seated upon an Imperiall Throne, with Pillars of silver and gold, which stood 3 or 4 stepps high, an Imperiall Crowne upon his Head, his Scepter in his right hand and his Globe in his left. And so he sate without any motion that I could perceave, till such time as I had repeated all the King my Masters titles and his owne, and given him greeting in his Majesties name. And then he stood up, and with a very gratious aspect, asked me how his Loving Brother the King of England did, to which when I had made him Answer, he sate downe agayne. Then the Lord Chancellor who stood upon a strada close by me with a high furred Capp upon his head: told me that the great Lord and Emperor of all Russia did very Lovingly re-ceave that Present which stood all this while before the Emperor, and likewise his Majesties Letters which I had presented; then he looke upon a Paper which he had in his hand and said with a loud voyce: "Simon Digby, The great Lord and Emperor of all Russia askes you how you do, and desires you to come neere unto him to kiss his Hand." The first stepp I made towards him upon the state: there stood foure Noble men in Cloth of silver Roabes, with Polates in their hands advanced over me as if they would have knocked me on the head; under which I went, and having stepped up one stepp upon the Emperors throne, it was as much as I could do to reache his Hand, which when I had kissed, I retired unto the Place when I had my first Posture… As I was to goe out of the roome, I observed betwixt 20ty and 30ty great Princes and Councellors of State, sitting upon the left hand of the Emperor, who were all in long Roabes of Cloth of gold, imbrodered with Pearles and Precious Stones, and high Capps either of Sables or Black Foxe about three quarters of a yard high upon their heads. To them, at my going out of the Doore, I bowed myself and they all rose up and putt of their Capps unto me.
SIMON DIGBY TO SIR JOHN COKE
? you Teachers of Christendom! Rome fell away long ago and lies prostrate, and the Poles fell in the like ruin with her, being to the end the enemies of the Christian. And among you orthodoxy is of mongrel breed; and no wonder - if by the violence of the Turkish Mahound you have become impotent, and henceforth it is you who should come to us to learn. By the gift of God among us there is autocracy; till the time of Nikon, the apostate, in our Russia under our pious princes and tsars the orthodox faith was pure and undefiled, and in the Church was no sedition.
AVVAKUM (J. HARRISON'S AND H. MIRRLEES's TRANSLATION)
Muscovy appeared strange to foreigners. Visitors from the West, such as Guy de Miege, secretary to the embassy sent to Alexis by Charles II of England, as well as many others, described it as something of a magic world: weird, sumptuous, colorful, unlike anything they had ever seen, and utterly barbarian. The church of St. Basil the Blessed, one might add, continues
to produce a similar impression on many European and American visitors. Foreign emissaries noticed the rich costumes, especially the furs, the striking grey beards, the elaborate court ceremonial, the lavish banquets and the tremendous drinking. They added, however, that the state dinners, with their endless courses, proved deficient in plates and silver and that the wise grey beards as a rule said nothing. Of more importance were the fundamental characteristics of Muscovy that the visitors quickly discovered: the enormous power and authority of the tsar and the extreme centralization which required that even insignificant matters be referred for decision to high officials. Other interesting facts were reported; however, to sum up, what they saw was an intricate, cohesive, and well-organized society, but one which they found uncongenial and very odd. Indeed, we find references to the effect that Turkey stood closer to the West than Muscovy and sincere doubts as to whether the Muscovites were really Christians.
The view of Muscovy as a strange world apart, a view shared by foreign travelers with such diverse later groups as the Slavophiles and certain Polish historians, contains some truth. Muscovite Russia existed in relative isolation by contrast, for example, with Kievan Russia. Moreover, it developed a distinctive culture based on religion and ritualism and assumed a tone of self-righteousness and suspicion toward any outside influence. This peculiar and parochial culture, it must be added, apparently had a great hold on the people. But the case should not be overstated. In reality the main elements of Muscovite culture - religion, language, law, and others - served as links to the outside world. In terms of time, too, Muscovy represented not simply a self-contained culture, but the transition from appanage Russia to the Russian Empire. And, after all, it was the Muscovites themselves, led by Peter the Great, who transformed their country and culture - the fairy land and at times the nightmare of Western travelers - into one of the great states of modern Europe.
Religion and Church. The Schism
Religion occupied a central position in Muscovite Russia and reflected the principal aspects and problems of Muscovite development: the growth and consolidation of the state; ritualism and conservatism; parochialism and the belonging to a larger world; ignorant, self-satisfied pride and the recognition of the need for reform. As already mentioned, the expansion and strengthening of the Muscovite state found a parallel in the evolution of the Church in Muscovy. The Church councils of 1547, 1549, 1551, and 1554 strove to improve ecclesiastical organization and practices and eliminate various abuses. In 1547 twenty-two Russians were canonized, and in 1549 seventeen more. The resulting consolidated national pantheon of saints represented a religious counterpart to the political unification. The
Hundred-Chapter Council of 1551 dealt, as its name indicates, with many matters in the life of the Church. The council of 1554 condemned certain Russian heretics and heresies which had roots either in Protestantism or in the teachings of the non-possessors. None of them, it might be noted, gained popular support.
The rising stature of the Russian Church at a time when many other Orthodox Churches, including the patriarchate of Constantinople itself, fell under the sway of the Moslem Turks increased Muscovite confidence and pride. References to the holy Russian land, to Holy Russia, date from the second half of the sixteenth century. In 1589, as we know, Muscovy obtained its own patriarch. Some later incumbents of this position, such as Hermogen, Philaret, and Nikon, were to play different but major roles in Russian history. The upgrading of numerous Muscovite sees after the establishment of the patriarchate was followed by a further expansion of the Church when Ukraine, which included the ancient metropolitanate of Kiev and several other dioceses, joined Moscow in 1654. It should be added that the Church, especially the monasteries, enjoyed enormous wealth in land and other possessions in spite of the repeated efforts of the government to curb its holdings and particularly to prevent its encroachments on the gentry.
The great split or schism in the seventeenth century - raskol in Russian - revealed serious weaknesses in the apparently mighty and monolithic Muscovite Church. Over a long period of time, errors in translation from the Greek and other mistakes had crept into some Muscovite religious texts and rituals. Tsar Michael had already established a commission to study the matter and make the necessary corrections. Some visiting Orthodox dignitaries also urged reform. But in the face of general ignorance, inertia, and opposition little was done until Nikon became patriarch i
n 1652. The new head of the Church proceeded to act in his usual determined manner which before long became a drastic manner. The reign of Tsar Alexis was witnessing a religious and moral revival in the Church, an effort to improve the performance of the clergy and to attach a higher spiritual tone and greater decorum to various ecclesiastical functions. Yet, once Nikon introduced the issue of corrections, many leaders of this revival, such as Stephen Vonifatiev, Ivan Neronov, and the celebrated Archpriest Avvakum, or Habakkuk, turned against him. In 1653 they accused him of heresy.
To defeat the opposition, the patriarch proceeded to obtain the highest possible authority and support for his reforms: in 1654 a Russian Church council endorsed the verification of all religious texts; next, in response to inquiries from the Russian Church, the patriarch of Constantinople called a council that added its sanction to Nikon's reforms; a monk was sent to bring five hundred religious texts from Mount Athos and the Orthodox East, while many others arrived from the patriarchs of Antioch and Alex-
andria; a committee of learned Kievan monks and Greeks was set up to do the collating and correcting; another Russian Church council in 1656 also supported Nikon's undertaking. Nikon widened the scope of the reform to include the ritual in addition to texts, introducing in particular the sign of the cross in the Greek manner with three rather than two fingers. But the patriarch's opponents refused to accept all the high authorities brought to bear against them and stood simply on the Muscovite precedent - to keep everything as their fathers and grandfathers had it. They found encouragement in Nikon's break with the tsar in 1658 and in the ineffectiveness of the cleric who replaced him at the head of the Church. To settle matters once and for all, a Russian Church council was held in 1666 and another Church council, attended by the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, who also represented those of Constantinople and Jerusalem, convened later that year and continued in 1667, in Moscow. This great council, which deposed Nikon for his bid for supreme political power, considered the issue of his reforms, listened to the dissenters, and in the end completely endorsed the changes. The opponents had to submit or defy the Church openly.